Lenin’s Heritage: ‘Water of Life’ and ‘Water of Death’

Lenin’s Heritage:
‘Water of Life’ and ‘Water of Death’


Vodolazov G.G.

Dr. Sci. (Philos.), Prof., Political theory department, Moscow State University of International Relations, MFA of Russia, Vice-president of the Academy of political science, Moscow, Russia gvodolazov@yandex.ru

ID of the Article:

Rubric: 150th V.I. Lenin's anniversary

For citation:

Vodolazov G.G. Lenin’s Heritage: ‘Water of Life’ and ‘Water of Death’. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological Studies]. 2020. No 4. P. 38-49


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Abstract

Summing up the lessons of the October Revolution and the first years of the post-October development, Lenin stated: “We have to admit a fundamental change in our whole point of view on socialism”. This way the question was raised about the need to create a theory of renewed socialism that meets the conditions of the 20th century. The theory that would solve the problem: how, leading society out of the deadlocks of capitalism, not to plunge into other dead ends – the dead ends of an authoritarian-bureaucratic system. In this context the article analyses the contribution made by Lenin to the theory of renewed socialism. The following question is posed: what of Lenin’s legacy can be included (“water of life”) in the modern socio-transformative theory, what is discarded (“water of death”) and how can it be supplemented, based on the realities of the 21st century.


Keywords
October revolution; military communism; NEP; liberalism; socialism; democracy; pluralism; real humanism; Keynesianism

References

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Content No 4, 2020